We all know that DNA damage in our cells is dangerous - but how about in our food? Postdoc Jinwoo Shin's study shows that DNA in some foods is highly damaged by cooking and that it may be hazardous to us -
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.5c08138

Our study of pseudouridines in RNA was just published - it turns out that they stabilize RNA from cleavage by having much less nucleophilic 2'-OH groups:
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.5c01345

I also had the privilege of speaking at the Samsung Science & Technology Foundation Global Research Symposium on Chemical Biology a few days ago in San Diego. It was packed with great research and discussions. A belated thanks to @Samsung

I attended and spoke at the ACS Western Regional meeting this weekend - thanks to @ByronPurse for the invitation and for organizing a fun session on nucleoside and nucleic acids chemistry!

Using a DNA-catalyst conjugate to place aryl groups at specific sequences in RNA -
Congrats to Sumon Pratihar for leading the work!

doi.org/10.1002/anie.202515681

New and simple chemical modifications to poly(A) tails extend protein expression -- a really easy one-pot method

Great work by Linglan Fang and Wenrui Zhong in our lab!

doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c11900

Spoke at Monday's ACS symposium in honor of Peter Dervan's birthday - it was a great time seeing Peter, Jackie, and the many alums who he trained

Congratulations to Yixuan (Edward) Gao for publication of his paper on the first SMUG1 small molecule activator - it upregulates pyrimidine repair in cellular models. doi.org/10.1016/j.dnarep.2025.103809

...and then I told it to give it the correct twist - not a particularly good result

so I asked ChatGPT to make a cartoon of DNA - and it made it left handed...

this one looks AI generated
-not a helix, but looks helix-y

Congrats to Edward Gao on the publication of his paper - an improved synthesis of damaged pyrimidines -

doi: 10.1080/15257770.2024.2437038

when a helix is not a helix

DNA Publicity Art of the Day:

✘ left-hand twist
✅ dryer hose construction

inaccurate DNA art of the day:
gives new meaning to "DNA damage"

Very small RNA-reactive reagents can map RNA in crowded spaces in the cell -
congrats to Dr. Lu Xiao!
doi: 10.1016/j.chembiol.2024.09.009